It's a normal day in Gensokyo with little to no things of interest happening or so it seemed as a train came railing out of nowhere with a particular someone onboard and that someone was none other than Y/N who had left with his family mysteriously long ago without a word or even a trace for anyone to follow up on until now.
--- Y/N Pov ---
Its strange somehow coming back to Gensokyo after all these years, last time I was in Gensokyo I was only a young child and I can't even remember much of my time then and yet here I am all thanks to my parents, "I wonder how much has changed over that time" I asked myself while looking at the boarded up window of the train I was travelling on which seems to be in a poor state, in fact all windows were boarded up well to a point it was next to impossible to look through the gaps in them and the train is an equivalent to that of a ghost train due me being the only one onboard.
After 10 minutes of me going into deep thought about what awaits me the train began to screech to a halt and the door opens with light flashing in from the open entrance to which I got off my seat, grabbed my bag and headed towards the exit and got off the train and into the bright light of the world which blinded me for a second or 2 since I got used being in the darkness of the train due to the lights in the train were broken.
After my vision adjusted to the natural light of the world I realized I wasn't in a train station but rather in the middle of a field which instantly confused me.
"Wait this isn't my stop." I said as I looked back at the old train but instead of expecting to see the train that brought me here I was greeted with nothing, not even a single railway track but rather a field where the train originally was on.
"What the..." I said in confusion as I looked around to see where the train went as well my current surroundings and after snapping out of my confusion I started to panic since I was in the middle of nowhere, not a single person or even a building in sight and I had no clue where to go, at least until I remembered what my parents told me, my old family home is suppose to be located on the edge of a forest close to a mountain with a strange name and much to my surprise, just as I started looking around I could see a forest with a mountain not too far from it in the distance, and with that I began walking with the hopes that this was the forest I was told to head to.
--- 1 hour later ---
After a long walk I was out of breathe but at least I managed to stumbled upon a old house that looked like a small mansion and I checked the image given to me by my parents that was in my bag which confirmed it that this house was the one that I lived in when I was little.
After grabbing a key to the house from my bag I opened the front door slowly as the sunlight started to shine inside which greeted me to an old hallway filled with dust and cobwebs. As I entered I could see that a lot if not all the furniture was still here like paintings, chairs, tables and other furniture which was strange since normally you wouldn't abandon all your belongings when moving away but I just shrugged it off thinking my parents must have been in a rush or just wanted to start a new life and leave everything behind but my guess was as good as any but getting back on track, I began exploring the house.
The first room I visit is the living room which looks somewhat ordinary with only a few minor things of notice being furniture like a large portrait covered from top to bottom in dust making it impossible to make out heads or tails of what the portrait is depicting.
The next room I went to was the kitchen which seemed to be filled with utensils like forks, spoons, pans as well as some unique equipment like knives with custom designs like handles on them from the looks of things, the kitchen also had just about the same appliances that any other kitchen would have.
Moving on from the kitchen the next room I visited appeared to be some sort of personal library with shelves that reached to the very top of the room and a long table with a candle and random papers scattered around it.
Looking around the room each shelf seems to be filled with all sorts of books like 'how to magic volume 1' and 'martial arts for dummies' as well as a lot of other old dusty books that somehow seem to be possible still intact and readable despite their lack of maintenance over all these years of this place being abandoned.
The final room I visited was a storage room that was more of a utility closet than anything. Inside was basic cleaning equipment like brooms, mops and buckets which will definitely come in handy later after I'm done with looking around.
With that I decided to make my way upstairs to the second floor and started looking around and without there being much to talk about as I visited the bathroom which looked ordinary without anything worth noting and the first bedroom which seemed to be a spare bedroom for guests since it had little to nothing inside besides basic stuff like an empty wardrobe, a bed, a work table and a chair to go along with it.
The next room seems to have belonged to my parents as it had all sorts of things like night stands, a queen sized bed, a wardrobe with clothes still in it, small photo frames with what I'm guessing is me and my parents when I was little and a lot of other things. Up until now nothing here has interested me all that much, at least not until I visited the next room which was also the last room in the house, my room.
As I approached the room I could already feel a slight wave of nostalgia hit me as I slowly opened the door and entered inside the room just to be greeted to a somewhat messy room with scribbled drawings on the floor and a few toys like dolls lying around which intensified the nostalgic feeling but it was nothing compared to what I saw next, a framed photo facing directly at me from a night stand next to my bed which I picked up and wiped the dust off of the glass casing which revealed 3 kids playing and 1 of them was me and as for 2 other kids I wasn't very sure of but 1 wore a unusual red and white outfit while the other wore a black and white outfit that looked like that of witch even with a pointy hat to go along with it.
What I did know was that those 2 were my only friends and I could remember all the adventures the 3 of us had but I don't have a single clue on what their names were to which I'm ashamed to admit to but in my defense I haven't seen them or thought about them since I was a kid and life tends to distract you from things real quick as you grow up.
"I wonder if I will ever meet them again... heh that would be a nice surprise." I said to myself at the thought of having the extremely small chance of meeting my first and only friends I ever made in Gensokyo become reality.
After the nostalgia trip was over I dropped my bag and started to unpack some of my stuff before headed downstairs to get a broom and other things and began cleaning everywhere to which I wasn't very fond of doing but it would be best to do it now than later and by the time I finished cleaning everything the sun has long set and the house was pitch dark making it hard to navigate where I was going but after a good few minutes of walking around I finally reached my room and flopped dead on my bed from exhaustion from all my hard work.
"Tomorrow is another day..." I muttered to myself as I began drifting off to sleep.
--- Reimu Pov ---
Reimu:"NO!"
I shouted as I woke up from a nightmare, it was the one if many I had so far this week and yet each one felt worse than the one before it and I wasn't sure why I was having them.
???:"having trouble sleeping?"
I instantly recognised who that intrusive voice belonged to.
Yukari:"Waking up because of a little nightmare certainly can't be good for your health"
Reimu:"YUKARI, WERE YOU SPYING ON ME!?"
Yukari:"My, accusing me of such a petty crime. I simply came to pay you a visit but after seeing you sleep I was about to leave until you started twisting and muttering in your sleep made me want to stay and watch for a bit."
Reimu:"Give me 1 good reason to not exterminate you here, right now."
Yukari:"Very well I will play along then, I can offer you a solution to your little dream issue but first I will need to hear what your dreams were all about."
Reimu:"..."
Yukari:"Come now, I can't help you without knowing the essential details".
Reimu:"Why do you need to know so badly, don't you know some spell that can just make me forget all about my dreams or something."
Yukari:"Perhaps but if we want to get to the root of the issue then I need to know the dreams that are stemming from it."
Reimu:"...Fine... but if you tell anyone then I will make sure you will regret coming here."
Yukari:"very well I promise, now then go on and tell me all about your little nightmares."
Yukari hid her face then for a moment with a hand fan to hide her laughter which she poorly tried to hide, honestly some times I feel like my problems are music to her ears.
Reimu:"It all began earlier this week, when I started getting these weird dreams and in each one I would meet a boy and we would go places, sometime other people like Marisa would accompany us and sometimes it would be just us 2 but each time it was the same boy and then these lucid dreams turned into nightmares, in each one I would watch the aftermath of him getting killed by a youkai that would taunt me more and more each time I had that nightmare..."
Yukari:"That certainly is a lot to take in but I think I know the solution to your dream issues and it's that you might be worried for your friends safety so to put your mind at ease, I will say this. It's not your problem to worry about others and neither is it your duty, sometimes it's best to put yourself before others."
Reimu:"I know that much!"
Yukari:"It may be obvious but it's still an effective solution in my opinion so now that that's been cleared up, I'll be going now."
Reimu:"Wait that's it? You didn't even give me the slightest bit of help!"
Yukari:"My, and here I thought that my advice was helpful, anyhow I will be taking my leave so I recommend you go back to having a beauty nap."
With that said and done, Yukari opened a gap and vanished into it before the gap closed itself and disappeared as silence filled the room once again.
Reimu:"Thanks for nothing..."
-----------------------------------------------------------
Author note: I'm not gonna be making any Author note in any upcoming chapters to avoid having to write about all the boring behind the scenes details.
Not the best start to a story since half if not more was focused on the reader to help them settle in but I promise to keep this as a 1 time thing.
Anyhow, thank you all for reading the first chapter of the story. if you enjoyed it then I'm glad and I would love hear hear out any opinions you all may have to further shape the future chapters to come!